Councillor in one-finger salute to protesters

A SENIOR city councillor has landed himself in hot water by making an obscene one-fingered gesture to carol-singing protesters.

Councillor Trevor Davies stunned the group of parents and children as he was heading into a champagne reception hosted by developers in the Old Town.

Save Our Old Town (SOOT) campaigners were singing cheekily adapted carols and songs to voice their objections to the 200 million Caltongate development.

But when they greeted him with a personalised ditty he snapped and made his frustration with them abundantly clear.

The city's planning convener was stung by a song to the tune of Weel May the Keel Row: "Trevor is a planner/But he's not got a banner/He's selling off the Old Toon/To build a big hotel."

One of the protesters, Sally Richardson, secretary of the Canongate Community Forum, said she was holding her two-year-old daughter Lily at the time.

"Luckily Lily does not know what that means, but we got a clear message from him," she said.

"Are we to look forward to being rudely gesticulated at by Trevor if he does not agree with us in the future?"

Cllr Davies now faces an official reprimand after a formal complaint was made against him.

The incident took place on Tuesday night outside the Fruitmarket Gallery on Market Street.

Protester Catriona Grant, chairwoman of the Old Town Community Council, said: "We obviously rattled Trevor Davies, but his reaction was aggressive and we were all taken aback.

"He is the convener of the planning committee and we need to be able to approach him and debate with him but. With such an attitude, that might not be possible."

Mrs Richardson added: "It was a light-hearted song and definitely wasn't abusive but he was clearly angry and stuck up his middle finger to us. The fact there were teenagers and small children in the audience just made it worse. What kind of an example does that set to young people when they see it from someone in a position of authority?"

Other protesters accused Cllr Davies of being "rude and intimidating" towards a peaceful, family protest. Council sources say he has had to explain his behaviour to city leader Ewan Aitken.

In a statement, Cllr Davies said: "I was going to a Christmas party, and, unusually, my wife, who has nothing to do with politics, came with me.

"As we approached the venue, in the dark, I heard various quite personal remarks. I find that unacceptable and it made me angry. As a politician, however, I understand I should not have reacted publicly in any way and I apologise if anyone was offended."

The city's Tory leader, Councillor Iain Whyte, said: "Cllr Davies is a big boy and should know better than to react to things like this - regardless of what was said by the protesters.

"Perhaps he needs to behave in a more adult manner in future."

A council spokeswoman said councillors were expected to adhere to rules of "appropriate conduct". She said: "The complaint will be looked at closely by council officials who will decide whether to take any action."

It is understood any action taken by the authority against Cllr Davies is likely to be limited to some form of reprimand.

NOT-SO-CLEVER TREVOR

FORMER television producer Trevor Davies has rarely been far from controversy since joining the city council.

The man behind the hit series Hamish Macbeth has offended New Town lawyers, city retailers and 4X4 drivers in recent years.

• Four-wheel drive owners were offended when he compared their vehicles to the "ugly" wheelie bins protesters were fighting against.

• He upset retailers during the road tolls debate by suggesting they do more to attract shoppers rather than moan about tolls scaring away motorists.

• His bravado backfired when he challenged a public meeting of New Town residents, including several lawyers, to "take us to court if you don't like our wheelie bin plans". They did.

• John Lewis bosses were not amused when he publicly described their flagship London store as "tatty", after they raised concerns about the impact of road tolls.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.